naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
I've seen a few people wonder why some people support Palestine in this conflict. While videos like this one (which predates the current conflict) are undoubtedly propaganda, they do offer a window into the worldview of a person who supports Palestine.
Wikipedia claims that 40% of male Palestinians have spent some time in an Israeli prison. I hear about Israel demolishing 55,000 Palestinian structures as of 2022. I remember that Gaza had been blockaded by Egypt and Israel since 2005, despite Israel supposedly backing out of Gaza.
Even if every example of Israelis killing Palestinian civilians was collateral damage or accident, even if we assume that the cameras showing Israeli brutality always start rolling at the perfect moment to make it look like unnecessary brutality on their part, it's obvious to me that Palestine won't be able to grow under its current conditions of occupation. If the United States supports Israel, then Israel will prevail and Palestine will lose little by little every year. It will be a slow motion catastrophe, and there is nothing Palestine can do about it.
Is national, regional and global stability worth anything to the Palestinian people under such conditions? No wonder people are posting music videos in this thread of Palestinians with pipe dreams of Russia becoming a global super power again, and supporting Palestine to spite the United States. They're fucked, and I think there's something noble in fighting until you're wiped from the Earth by your enemy. Even if history remembers you as a monster, they will remember you.
The moral argument from the Zionist position here is that you can't see or hear the screaming Palestinian children dying a slow agonizing death whilst the concrete wall they are trapped under slowly grinds their pelvis to a mush. But you can see the videos of Israeli people captured and that has a more immediate pull on your heartstrings so that's where we draw the line.
This is not an uncharitable argument or a strawman. The actual argument is 'look at our propaganda and feel with us'. Any objective look at numbers tells us the story that jews in Israel have been massively overrepresenting the threat they face compared to any other integration issue facing the west. Be that black or Arab.
I think there is a different argument. When one bombs a target, one knows there may be collateral damage. When one purposefully attempts to kill a toddler, the death of the toddler isn’t a side effect.
That applies fine to the grunts on the ground -- considering the leaders of Hamas, one could easily say there is no difference. After all, the fighters also attacked many legitimate military targets; when you let a bunch of armed fanatics loose on a population they've been trained to hate since birth, there's bound to be some 'collateral damage', they might say. (much as when you bomb a rocket emplacement in a city)
(also I remain interested to see where all this killing toddlers stuff is coming from -- it certainly seems like something Hamas people might do, but I've yet to see any actual documentation of it)
There's a particular image floating around of a car seat with a blood stain where the head would rest and next to it an infant dress with blood along the top half. And this news report. Of course Journalist reliability and the reliability of their sources is always a factor.
So I haven't seen the image, but that report is just what I'm talking about -- a literal carbon copy of WWI 'bayonetting babies' propaganda, accompanied by a picture of some bodies that clearly are not babies.
Source: Israeli intelligence agents reached out to a 2-bit freelancer, and she crosschecked some photos of the event. Which of course can't be shared. This tweet is clearly a fabrication, whether something like that happened or not.
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Notes -
I've seen a few people wonder why some people support Palestine in this conflict. While videos like this one (which predates the current conflict) are undoubtedly propaganda, they do offer a window into the worldview of a person who supports Palestine.
I'm honestly a little conflicted about who I should support. I condemn the killing of civilians by Hamas last weekend, but then I see United Nations OCHA data like this, where it says that 3,208 Palestinian civilians have died from 2008 to 2020 (compared to 177 Israeli civilians over the same period), mostly from air-launched explosions. I see people talking about supporting "the Jewish state’s justified but often brutal response", which so far includes blowing up a Palestinian house full of civilians with no warning, killing those inside, blowing up marketplaces and mosques, and attacking the Jabalia refugee camp.
Wikipedia claims that 40% of male Palestinians have spent some time in an Israeli prison. I hear about Israel demolishing 55,000 Palestinian structures as of 2022. I remember that Gaza had been blockaded by Egypt and Israel since 2005, despite Israel supposedly backing out of Gaza.
Even if every example of Israelis killing Palestinian civilians was collateral damage or accident, even if we assume that the cameras showing Israeli brutality always start rolling at the perfect moment to make it look like unnecessary brutality on their part, it's obvious to me that Palestine won't be able to grow under its current conditions of occupation. If the United States supports Israel, then Israel will prevail and Palestine will lose little by little every year. It will be a slow motion catastrophe, and there is nothing Palestine can do about it.
Is national, regional and global stability worth anything to the Palestinian people under such conditions? No wonder people are posting music videos in this thread of Palestinians with pipe dreams of Russia becoming a global super power again, and supporting Palestine to spite the United States. They're fucked, and I think there's something noble in fighting until you're wiped from the Earth by your enemy. Even if history remembers you as a monster, they will remember you.
The moral argument from the Zionist position here is that you can't see or hear the screaming Palestinian children dying a slow agonizing death whilst the concrete wall they are trapped under slowly grinds their pelvis to a mush. But you can see the videos of Israeli people captured and that has a more immediate pull on your heartstrings so that's where we draw the line.
This is not an uncharitable argument or a strawman. The actual argument is 'look at our propaganda and feel with us'. Any objective look at numbers tells us the story that jews in Israel have been massively overrepresenting the threat they face compared to any other integration issue facing the west. Be that black or Arab.
I think there is a different argument. When one bombs a target, one knows there may be collateral damage. When one purposefully attempts to kill a toddler, the death of the toddler isn’t a side effect.
That applies fine to the grunts on the ground -- considering the leaders of Hamas, one could easily say there is no difference. After all, the fighters also attacked many legitimate military targets; when you let a bunch of armed fanatics loose on a population they've been trained to hate since birth, there's bound to be some 'collateral damage', they might say. (much as when you bomb a rocket emplacement in a city)
(also I remain interested to see where all this killing toddlers stuff is coming from -- it certainly seems like something Hamas people might do, but I've yet to see any actual documentation of it)
There's a particular image floating around of a car seat with a blood stain where the head would rest and next to it an infant dress with blood along the top half. And this news report. Of course Journalist reliability and the reliability of their sources is always a factor.
So I haven't seen the image, but that report is just what I'm talking about -- a literal carbon copy of WWI 'bayonetting babies' propaganda, accompanied by a picture of some bodies that clearly are not babies.
Source: Israeli intelligence agents reached out to a 2-bit freelancer, and she crosschecked some photos of the event. Which of course can't be shared. This tweet is clearly a fabrication, whether something like that happened or not.
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